Hooray for Guantanamo and Torture!

[Lemur]

[A fork from the OBL Dead thread]

The one thing that I find dubious is the tenuous claim that somehow the Guantanamo detainees contributed useful intelligence. This seems a convenient claim, but highly unlikely.

Yeah, that's being sold so hard I'm getting rather suspicious. If you subject the claim to a cursory cui bono, you get interesting results. Also note that the Fox News website has had giant GITMO IS THE BEST headlines for over 24 hours now. Clearly this is being hawked harder than a Dr. Phil-branded divorce kit.

Anyway, the CIA has every reason to push the idea that Gitmo was indispensable, even though getting the pseudonym (not the name, the fake name) of a courier is the sort of thing that could doubtless be gained via normal interrogation techniques. Gah, the confused welter of self-denial and post-hoc rationalizations over torture make my brain hurt just reconstructing. So according to some torture cons, we only waterboarded three men, 'cause an unreliable government official who has been wrong about most everything said so. In which case "enhanced interrogation" (that's literally the Gestapo term for torture -- "Verschärfte Vernehmung," note immense irony and instant Godwin) shouldn't even be a factor in getting the pseudonym.

But of course, even the most ardent torture con only makes the "three people" argument for the sake of debate; nobody believes it, not even the person putting the argument forward. Way too many deaths in confinement, not to mention medical reports which clearly indicate detainees were beaten to death in various theaters of operation. Also note that at least some of the "suicides" at Gitmo appear to be beatings that went on a little bit too long.

Anyway. Military and CIA interrogators probably committed crimes, and I don't doubt they know it. Gitmo remains intensely unpopular. (Although in fairness, every alternative to Gitmo is also unpopular.) The FBI has been staring at the CIA with hot disapproval for the entire length of the torture program, issuing interagency memo after memo saying, in essence, "We know how to interrogate and you don't. P.S.: You're committing war crimes. KTHXBYE!" So now, the day after the execution of OBL, suddenly it's all thanks to Gitmo and waterboarding.

Of all the crass political spins in the wake of this historic event, using it to reverse-engineer a justification for the entire ill-thought-out seven-year torture program has to be the most shameless, misguided, morally bankrupt and unamerican.

Guantanamo is great and wonderful, brought to you by the same cast of jokers who told us all about WMD in Iraq.

P.S.: Don Rumsfeld declared today that the courier's pseudonym was not obtained using "harsh techniques" or waterboarding. Of course, Rumsfeld has been wrong or disastrously half-right about most everything, so I don't know that I give a flying gah what he has to say.

This is going to sidetrack the OBL Dead thread. I'm going to spin it off on its own.

[rory_20_uk]

America's self perception is often contrary to facts. The ends always appear to justify the means as you see it's all for Freedom, which needs to be protected at any price. Especially when that price is the freedoms and indeed lives of others.

Most Americans will want to believe this story - as it allows them to be the Good Guys again in their own eyes. Illegal actions become evidence of doing what has to be done to make the world a safer place (something again not to be looked at too closely). The nasty bits will fade as no one wants to focus on them and the great myth continues.

[Lemur]

@rory, I don't have a problem with national mythology. Every country has its own, and it serves a purpose that is not entirely or even mostly malign. Specifically, I am:

1. Extremely suspicious of anyone using the death of OBL to justify policies of torture and indefinite detention
2. Bracing for a go-around with torture apologists

And that's about it. I don't think the USA is any worse than any other great power has been in rationalizing and self-mythologizing the messy business of empire. Frankly, compared to you Brits in your prime, we're Starfleet.

-edit-

It would appear that every Rupert Murdoch-owned outlet is pushing the same line. You have to admire the top-down discipline. Today in the WSJ? Viva Guantanamo.

[Shibumi]

I am very skeptical.

Builder Bob will probably swallow it though, hook and sink.

[Fragony]

There is absolutely something wrong with the way things are done, but what can you do? The dark ages in my mind say we have no choice but becomming our own enemy, just to live

[Lemur]

@Fragony, I don't see it. The British actually were an existential threat to the newborn USA, and yet our leaders at the time did not resort to mistreatment of prisoners, not even when the Brits did.

On Aug. 11, 1775, Washington sent a blistering letter to a British counterpart, Thomas Gage. He complained about gravely wounded and untreated American soldiers being thrown into a jail with common criminals.

Eight days later, despite threatening to treat British soldiers with equal cruelty, Washington admitted that he could not and would not retaliate in kind, writing: "Not only your Officers, and Soldiers have been treated with a Tenderness due to Fellow Citizens, & Brethren; but even those execrable Parricides [traitors] whose Counsels & Aid have deluged their Country with Blood, have been protected from the Fury of a justly enraged People."

Imagine that; a government on the run fighting a desperate war against a hated enemy and treating captured prisoners with compassion and decency.

By comparison, Al Qaeda has never been an existential threat to our nation.

We have been better than this. We are better than this.

I also question the wisdom of the Murdoch media empire, David Yoo, Don Rumsfeld et al in raising the issue of torture and Guantanamo at this late remove. Lots of details have emerged in the last few years, none of it to their credit:

The report — which represents the first independent review of any Guantanamo detainee’s medical record — is the clearest evidence yet that members of the base’s medical staff were complicit in the torture regime there.

“Medics have an independent, professional responsibility to identify and report incidences of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and torture,” Xenakis tells Danger Room. “They had a responsibility to speak up.”

“Personality disorders” and “routine stressors of confinement” were catch-all explanations for psychological disturbances, according to the report. “Temporary psychotic symptoms and hallucinations did not prompt consideration of abusive treatment.”

Neither did apparent physical symptoms. Three of the detainees showed evidence of physical maltreatment: contusions, bone fractures, lacerations, peripheral nerve damage and sciatica. But the medical staff turned a blind eye in their reports. “There was no mention of any cause for these injuries,” Iacopino and Xenakis write.

In their professional opinion, “the specific allegations of torture and ill treatment were highly consistent with and supported by physical and psychological evidence observed in all cases.”

[Banquo's Ghost]

Aside from the argument I put forward in the other thread, let's consider that if useful and current intelligence on OBL was gathered from Guantanamo detainees, it most certainly was not obtained through torture.

Tortured victims invariably disclose a lot of misleading information. They are either stubborn and misdirecting (standard delaying technique taught to all our operatives) or desperate to make the torture stop and therefore tend to disclose without discrimination. Some of this may be useful, most not. To get a pseudonym for a courier verified, you would have to do as much (if not far more) field work as would have got you the information in the first place, and with far fewer wild goose chases. No serious intelligence forces use torture for this reason - the ones that do use it for terror purposes, not intelligence gathering. (In other words, get the word out that agitators will suffer horribly and then we'll kill their children, wives, neighbours and camels as if we actually got some useful info/betrayal).

Despite the currency problem, it is remotely possible that useful information was obtained from detainees. If so, I can guarantee it would have been because of long-term relationship building between interrogators and prisoners. Possibly "plea bargains" - you know, 'once OBL is dead, we have no reason to keep you'.

Finally, the kind of torture reported is significant enough to besmirch everything the USA stands for, and inspire lunatics across the world - but wholly inadequate in scope and depravity to actually terrorise. That's why the US had to send prisoners to really efficient nasties abroad - and then still not be able to rely on what was revealed because as interrogators, those butchers don't know how to ask the right questions.

[rory_20_uk]

@Fragony, I don't see it. The British actually were an existential threat to the newborn USA, and yet our leaders at the time did not resort to mistreatment of prisoners, not even when the Brits did.

On Aug. 11, 1775, Washington sent a blistering letter to a British counterpart, Thomas Gage. He complained about gravely wounded and untreated American soldiers being thrown into a jail with common criminals.

Eight days later, despite threatening to treat British soldiers with equal cruelty, Washington admitted that he could not and would not retaliate in kind, writing: "Not only your Officers, and Soldiers have been treated with a Tenderness due to Fellow Citizens, & Brethren; but even those execrable Parricides [traitors] whose Counsels & Aid have deluged their Country with Blood, have been protected from the Fury of a justly enraged People."

Imagine that; a government on the run fighting a desperate war against a hated enemy and treating captured prisoners with compassion and decency.

By comparison, Al Qaeda has never been an existential threat to our nation.

We have been better than this. We are better than this.

I also question the wisdom of the Murdoch media empire, David Yoo, Don Rumsfeld et al in raising the issue of torture and Guantanamo at this late remove. Lots of details have emerged in the last few years, none of it to their credit:

The report — which represents the first independent review of any Guantanamo detainee’s medical record — is the clearest evidence yet that members of the base’s medical staff were complicit in the torture regime there.

“Medics have an independent, professional responsibility to identify and report incidences of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and torture,” Xenakis tells Danger Room. “They had a responsibility to speak up.”

“Personality disorders” and “routine stressors of confinement” were catch-all explanations for psychological disturbances, according to the report. “Temporary psychotic symptoms and hallucinations did not prompt consideration of abusive treatment.”

Neither did apparent physical symptoms. Three of the detainees showed evidence of physical maltreatment: contusions, bone fractures, lacerations, peripheral nerve damage and sciatica. But the medical staff turned a blind eye in their reports. “There was no mention of any cause for these injuries,” Iacopino and Xenakis write.

In their professional opinion, “the specific allegations of torture and ill treatment were highly consistent with and supported by physical and psychological evidence observed in all cases.”

I would agree the USA has been better than this. I have yet to be convinced the USAis. having to go back over 200 years to find a good example doesn't bode well.

Yes the Medics would have been either complicit or so poorly trained that they should be struck off. Just like they are at every other hospital when a patient dies for less than good reasons and no one says a thing. Last doctor I heard who was a whistle blower lost her job, had a nervous breakdown due to the intimidation before she lost her job and didn't practice for about 5 years afterwards. Part of it might have been the shock at being professionally destroyed by colleagues and superiors when all she was trying to do was do the right thing.

But I imagine they would have been extensively leant on to sign off things the "correct" way. Resign and get another job? OK, a possibility. But not if your boss tells you that doing so would not be well received.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

There is absolutely something wrong with the way things are done, but what can you do? The dark ages in my mind say we have no choice but becomming our own enemy, just to live

Inevitably, in warfare, you must adopt or co-opt SOME of the tactics employed by your enemy so as to counter the advantages they derive thereby. The what and the how of it is important, Frags, lest you lose yourself entirely.

As to the utility of harsh iterrogation methods, given that it took the better part of ten years to track the bloke down and arrange his meeting with Allah, it seems hard to place a lot of value on the harsh regimens. After all, their only real "claim to fame" is the relative speed at which they could generate information vis-a-vis the tried and true methods currently in use. It is impossible to claim that information quality and reliability are higher under such a regimen and it can be argued (with a good deal of support) the the information generated is likely to be LESS reliable. To be fair to those apologists for the harsh approach, suggestions that all such information is unreliable or un-useful are also overstated.

[TheLastDays]

America's self perception is often mostly contrary to facts.

That actually applies to any nation/people and even individuals...
It's a self defence mechanism...

And to the topic:
1) Torture is arguably not the best means to derive useful information.
2) Torture is indisputably not nice.

So, why torture? It's that simple...

[Lemur]

Hooray for Senator Lindsey Graham:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) stood apart from his colleagues in the GOP. "This idea we caught bin Laden because of waterboarding I think is a misstatement," he said. "This whole concept of how we caught bin Laden is a lot of work over time by different people and putting the puzzle together. I do not believe this is a time to celebrate waterboarding, I believe this is a time to celebrate hard work."